Bastion

bastion

[′bas·chən]

(geology)

A prominent aggregation of bedrock extending from the mouth of a hanging glacial trough and reaching well into the main glacial valley.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Bastion

A projecting portion of a fortification designed to defend the adjacent curtain wall; it typically approximates a semi-hexagon, with the two outer faces meeting at an acute angle, and two flanks abutting a curtain wall on each side.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Bastion

 

a pentagonal fortification erected at the corners of the fortress wall to fire at the area in front of or along the fortress wall or the moats in front of them. Bastions appeared for the first time in Italy at the end of the 15th century and in Russia in the 16th century, where they were called raskats until the 18th century. A fortress bastion in Russia and in other countries consisted of one or two earth ramparts for the placement of weapons: the first, or the main rampart, and the second, or cavalier, which was higher than the first. The front sides of the bastion were called faces; the sides, flanks; and the inner rear side was called the gorge. The parts of two neighboring bastions facing each other and the section of the barrier connecting them, called the curtain, formed the bastion front.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

bastion

A defense work, round, rectangular, or polygonal in plan, projecting from the outer wall of a fortification, principally to defend the adjacent perimeter.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.